Blogosphere

When I decided to create my blog it was because of things I have learned while on the board. In particular, "misconceptions often overwhelm the truth" and "culture eats strategy." There are many misconceptions about LPS and I will address them over time. The culture of an organization is important because in essence its the way we do things around here and the way we have been doing things, will not bode well for our future. This blog will look at our district without rose colored glasses and void of the spin I have been subjected to at many of the public meetings. Are there good things that happen in our schools? Absolutely! But those things will take up the lions share of every board meeting and newsletters sent to the community.Rarely will we have the crucial conversations that are necessary to improve the district. My blog will show the other side of things, in an attempt to offer some kind of balance to the dialogue. This is not a discussion forum, but I do read all of the comments and do learn from them. I generally will not respond to comments but they do help me ask questions and move forward on things that need to be addressed. There were several comments however I will comment on. To say that our back to school event did not cost anything is inaccurate. Hundreds of LPS man hours went into preparing for this event as well as some of the in house promotion we did. That time could have been spent making sure projects were completed and that the bus routes were accurate as well as a myriad of other things that really needed to get done for a smooth start to school. Residency is another issue. This district has turned a blind eye to this problem ever since the legacy initiative drove so many students out of our schools. Since the money follows the student, enrollment numbers are very important. I feel for the students from urban districts but residency is very simple, either you live in our district or you don't. I personally know of students that attended our grade schools using their grandparents address while living at their parents home in another city. Apartments can be problematic as well. For these reasons we are well within our authority to do random bed checks as Grosse Pointe and many other districts do. Livonia taxpayers must not be disenfranchised because we do not have the will to do what is right.